Monthly Archives: July 2018

“It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.” That’s what William Carlos Williams said, the famous poet and doctor, from New Jersey of all places. He … Continue reading →

Camus and Sartre started it all with that existentialism business. Think things through. Look at history. Be logical. Human existence has no provable inherent meaning or purpose. Existence is essence. There’s nothing else. Deal with it. Be a stoic hero. Give your … Continue reading →

There’s the small shopping center down on the corner with a Starbucks and a multiplex and a trendy fitness gym and a Trader Joe’s – where Schwab’s Drug Store once stood, where Lana Turner, in her tight sweater, wasn’t really … Continue reading →

The past is prologue. Go back to January 2008: Barack Obama, in his interview with the Reno Gazette-Journal’s editorial board, made the case that his movement is as much about a national moment as about him as a “singular” individual, … Continue reading →

The saturation point is the stage at which no more of a substance can be absorbed into a vapor – the “dew point” in meteorology when things get wet in the morning – or the stage at which no more … Continue reading →

Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious. That is what George Orwell was saying in 1939, in a review of a new book by Bertrand Russell: That is merely to say that we have now sunk … Continue reading →

The Anthony Newley musical Stop the World – I Want to Get Off opened on Broadway in 1962 and was a smash hit. The 1966 film version wasn’t. Perhaps it was the whining. Each time something unsatisfactory happens to the … Continue reading →

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This site offers a daily column on current events, and unlike other blogs, in long form. Short posts pointing to this and that and saying "Oh my!" seems a bit lazy. Columns here are an attempt to think things through. If you'd like to come along for the ride, fine. If you have neither the time nor patience for that, that is also fine - you can click on the LINKS tab at the top of the page and visit the sites that offer quick hits. Those provide the raw material for the analyses here.

The views here are mine alone, save for the occasional column from Ric in Paris or comments from key readers, like Rick, the News Guy in Atlanta, and others.

Commentary and guest columns are posted here, but there is a sister site, Just Above Sunset Photography, where images are far more important than words. That site is updated daily. Take a look.

JUST ABOVE SUNSET has been online, in various formats, since May 2003. Click on the ABOUT tab at the top of the page for more on that, and a note on who I am.